Paying It All Back
Liverpool University has been good to me in many ways, so it is only right, when they ask me if I would mind being interviewed as part of their research into widowhood, I don’t say no.
Last week, I was interviewed by a student and as ever I found it rather a pleasant experience, which is probably better than paying for therapy.
I very much believe that we should all use our experience to help others and what better place to start than your old school or university. I can’t go back to my old school, as it no longer exists, so Liverpool University will have to put up with me.
In an ideal world, there would be a central database of research projects, that needed guinea pigs or experienced professionals to help fulfil the research.
A Clever Funding Route From Huddersfield University
Huddersfield University has teamed up with peer-to-peer lender; Funding Circle to create an interesting route to finance and develop small businesses. It is described in this article. These paragraphs sum up the essence of the scheme.
Known as the Business Lending Partnership, Funding Circle’s recently-announced scheme alongside the University of Huddersfield has set a precedent for commercial and alternative lenders to start providing capital for non-traditional institutions.
Using Funding Circle, the university will lend an initial tranche of £100,000 to small businesses across the UK. The initiative seeks to support SME pioneers of the present and future, with all interest earned by the university’s investments to be put towards student scholarships for the University’s ‘Enterprise Development’ degree. Over the next five years, it is expected that more than 200 students from socially deprived backgrounds will gain access to the course.
Both Funding Circle and the university will also develop a series of seminars and internship opportunities with borrowers to ensure that the upcoming generation of business leaders can gain hands-on experience with flourishing British businesses as part of their degrees.
Obviously, not all partnerships will use the same model, but Huddersfield University and Funding Circle have used a clever model that can be cloned and/or adapted for other partnerships.
It will be interesting to see the nature of partnerships that develop in the next few years.
Crowd Funding For Research
I sometimes get involved in helping research projects at Liverpool University and I will also lob small amounts of funding towards projects I think are worthwhile.
I also look into innovative ways of raising funding for individuals and businesses, like Zopa and Funding Circle. I also loan money to the Developing World using Kiva.
So can their methods be used to raise funding for research projects.
Let’s take a researcher interested in how patients manage with the gluten-free diet, they need for coeliac disease. They perhaps want to interview as many patients as possible and produce a report that highlights both the problems and the successes, possibly on a regional basis.
So they have two needs.
A small amount of money is probably required, the size of which would depend on the size and scape of the project.
The second thing, that many projects, like the mythical one I outlined, often need subjects for the research.
Surely, a properly designed system could do both.
Similar things have been done under the general heading of crowd funding. There’s more here on Wikipedia.
How would such a system work? I would steal some of the methodology from sites like Zopa and Kiva.
The on-line system would be uploaded with suitable research projects, which borrowing from Zopa’s methods, would be checked as to the veracity of the researcher.
Prospective funders and participants would join and then search for projects, they might like to support, just like you search for suitable borrowers on Kiva.
Obviously, you could also rate researchers, just as you rate buyers and sellers on eBay.
There are some obvious winners, if this could be made to work!
I know from those in Universities, I’ve talked with, that getting funding for small projects is difficult and a lot of time and money is wasted.
Are there going to be any losers? Not directly, but I suspect some charities and their inefficient structures might be by-passed.
I will probably not develop the system, but someone will! On the other hand, if anybody wants to, I’ll be happy to advise.
George Backs Graphene
This report says that the Chancellor has found £21.5 million for research into graphene.
Some of the applications of graphene are listed here on Wikipedia. This is the first paragraph.
Several potential applications for graphene are under development, and many more have been proposed. These include lightweight, thin, flexible, yet durable display screens, electric circuits, and solar cells, as well as various medical, chemical, and industrial processes enhanced or enabled by the use of new graphene materials.
Of all the possible applications they list, graphene’s properties as a filtration membrane, may lead to some of the first widespread applications. This link points to an article about research at MIT, which shows that graphene may offer new ways of water desalination.
Graphene may seem to be a wonder material and the money for research is very much to be welcomed.
In the 1960s, there were two areas of research, for which great hopes were held out.
The first was carbon fibre, which when tried as fan blades for the RB 211 helped to bankrupt Rolls-Royce. But now, it is a ubiquitous substance, that appears in many applications, from golf club shafts to almost complete aircraft, like the Boeing Dreamliner.
A scientific curiosity at the time was the laser. Every university had one and would proudly show you their expensive example, generally doing nothing, except emitting an eerie green light. But now lasers are everywhere and most homes have at least one in a CD or DVD player.
Who will accurately predict what the uses of graphene will be in fifty years?
My only questions are.
1. Are we putting enough money and resources behind the researchers?
2. What other ideas are there out there with the potential to change the world for the better, that need proper backing?
Rat Poison And Sprouts Don’t Mix
This cautionary tale about mixing brussels sprouts with anti-coagulant drugs, like Warfarin, should be noted.
The trouble is that I like my sprouts, so I’ll go easy on them over Christmas.
I think though, I’ll do a before and after INR test.
I feel a bit of scientific research coming on!
Clever Tricks Improve Breast Scans
I like this story from the BBC’s web site.
One of the keys to fighting cancer is good diagnosis and the article shows how being clever with scientific, engineering and mathematical tricks, X-rays can be improved.
We’ll see a lot more of this type of innovation in the next few years and it’ll help in all sorts of fields and not just medicine.
Falling Out Of Love With Driving
The BBC is carrying a report about how we’re falling out of driving.
I had a stroke two years ago and my eyesight went, so I stopped driving. I could probably get my licence back, as my eyesight has improved, but I just don’t want the hassle.
I’ve moved from Suffolk to leafy Dalston in London and use buses and trains all the time now,
Do I miss driving? Not at all, despite my last car being a Lotus. My bank account doesn’t miss driving either!
And Now The Plastic Light Bulb!
Well not quite yet, but this report is encouraging.
Thinking how far lighting has come in the last ten years, what will be using in 2022?
And what will all this do for our electricity bills?
Cracking The Code
This story from the BBC’s web site shows how rapid DNA sequencing has been used to crack an MRSA outbreak.
It also shows how fast it will be in future to sequence DNA. This could lead to all sorts of new treatments for illnesses like cancer.
We should be hailing the scientists who did this! But others will say it’s wrong to mess with DNA.
As someone with a minor genetic disease, I hope we see more successes in the next few years.
On the other hand, if someone said to me, we could cure your coeliac disease, by giving you a gene change, I’d say no!
A Building For Eureka Moments
The winner of the Stirling prize was announced last night and it’s reported here on the BBC’s web site. I particularly liked this bit, about the winning building; the Sainsbury Laboratory at Cambridge University.
Stanton Williams received a £20,000 prize. Director Alan Stanton described the design as a 21st Century cloister, which encouraged scientists to interact and exchange ideas.
“Two scientists working on two pieces of research could bump into each other in the corridor and have a eureka moment, and say, my God, there’s the possibility of some really interesting scientific breakthrough here,” he said.
“Quite often, accidents are important, in science as they are in any creative endeavour. The building is there to try to ambush scientists into meeting and talking.”
I’ve worked in some crap buildings, most notably the electronics lab at Enfield Rolling Mills, but some good ones too, like ICI’s state-of-the-art offices for the 1960s in Runcorn. But then until probably about 1980, I rarely saw a scientist, researcher or innovator in anything pleasant. Even banks in those days had some really grim premises, if Lloyds Bank’s offices in Lombard Street were anything to go by. The Chief Management Accountant, who I effectively worked for, had a dingy office tucked away on a mezzanine behind a stair-case.
Could all of this, explain our dismal economic performance in those years? Anybody with a brain felt unwanted and went where they were appreciated.
We really don’t take working conditions for researchers and innovators seriously. Hopefully, this new lab in Cambridge will set the new standard.
The Anonymous Widower 